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Gil Thorp, 12/13/14

One of the Peanuts plots burned most intensely into my memory involves Charlie Brown’s baseball team advancing to the league championship through a series of odd circumstances that cause opposing teams to forfeit. The team wins the championship game outright — except that later they have to forfeit due to a gambling scandal: Linus and Lucy’s little brother Rerun bet Snoopy a nickel that the team would win. Anyway, this is just my way of saying that one of the Mudlark teams has actually won a championship for the first time in the decade I’ve been reading this strip, but panel two might cause everyone’s joy to unravel.

Blondie, 12/13/14

“These movies all depict the warm family togetherness that is the true meaning of Christmas. If anyone wants me, I’ll be sitting here by myself in the living room, staring at the TV and not talking to anybody.”

Funky Winkerbean, 12/13/14

Just in case you had forgotten, Funky Winkerbean has a character with PTSD that it occasionally does Very Serious Stories about!

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Mary Worth, 12/1/14

Despite Mary’s professed friendship for Hanna, she and her new beau were conspicuously absent from last week’s Thanksgiving feast. Apparently they spent the holiday at Sean’s assisted living unit, bantering about toast. “It’s the simple details that make all the difference,” Hanna says, pleased that the tasteless, pre-sliced white bread that Sean has pulled out of a plastic bag will be made vaguely edible by the toasting process.

Note that Sean has a top-of-the-line, four-slot toaster. He knows what the ladies like.

Dennis the Menace, 12/1/14

Having written a blog post more or less daily for ten years, I have come to have a certain degree of sympathy for the longrunning comics I mock, and to understand that not every day’s effort can be a winner: some days, you just sort of run with the joke you have and hope for a better tomorrow. And yet I don’t think that justifies pulling out a joke that was already ancient when it appeared in the first Bill and Ted movie 25 years ago, Dennis the Menace. I really, don’t. Do better.

Gil Thorp, 12/1/14

The t-shirt joke in panel three is probably similarly ancient, but I have to admit I kind of love it. I’m willing to overlook the fact that teams from public and Catholic high school rarely play against each other, in my experience, or that it’s rare for a football team to score 11 points. Any sports trash-talk that involves papal regnal names and Roman numerals is entirely acceptable to me.

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Hi and Lois, 11/26/14

Ha ha, it’s funny because Trixie is just a baby but she’s already terribly depressed!

Six Chix, 11/26/14

Ha ha, it’s funny because death is inevitable for all of us, and every person born is a future corpse!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 11/26/14

Ha ha, it’s funny because Rex is about to just got to town on that sandwich. Like, sure, they’ve been having a good talk about his daughter, who is the ostensible reason that he came here and all, but now it’s sandwich time and he won’t be able to speak or hear while he’s engaging in sandwich-consumption activities. Anyway, I’m very much looking forward to my next lunch or dinner meeting, where I’m going to talk for a few minutes, then say “Excuse me, I’m going in!” and just make loud, ecstatic chewing noises for the next half hour. If the other person tries to say anything, I’ll just chew-moan louder.

Gil Thorp, 11/26/14

Oh look, the Mudlarks are actually doing well this year and won a postseason game and wait a minute why did Gil say “playoffs” post-season games in this strip are called “playdowns” and always have been God damn it this ISN’T FUNNY AT ALL